Colman: Koala Park Sanctuary (Sydney)

Honestly the name of this park is super misleading because it was more like a prison than a sanctuary for the animals.

"Colman you must be exaggerating," is what you must be thinking right now. But just take a look at these photos. I mean I'm sure I'll enjoy living in such a small cage if I was a bird. Ok I guess it makes sense to cage the birds to prevent them from flying away, and to cage carnivores so that they won't hurt anyone, but even the goats are fenced up in a super small area.

Before I continue let's play a game. Can you find the animal?

Don't worry if you can't because there isn't one!!

At first my parents kinda thought that the place was under renovation or something because of how dilapidated it was. Some of the cages were also empty and most importantly there were only two other tourists when we first entered. So I went to ask the cashier where all the animals were, specifically the wombat and she promised that it was there.

The park provides animal presentation- don't be to hyped about this because almost every other zoo in Australia does the same- but during the dingo presentation, the worker came to the dingo cage late and refused to bring the dingoes out of the cage even though it was part of the presentation. And I swear to god the dingoes did not like the worker; you can assume why. Also you can see how skinny this dingo is.

At first I thought that it wasn't too bad considering we could take a picture with the koalas but then we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park a week later and when you compare the difference between the photos...

left: Koala Park Sanctuary
right: Featherdale Wildlife Park

There was also the sheep sheering show which might be considered interesting to some people, but to me, I found it really cruel. It was really obvious that the sheep felt super ashamed after it's wool coat was sheered off.

Putting aside the poor living conditions of the animals, the park is really far away ($50 on Uber), the attractions in the park do not justify the price of the tickets ($27). It's in the middle of nowhere with only 1 (or 2) busses back to the city.

While writing this post, I searched for the park online and it's 99% negative comments. Honestly I have no idea where my dad found the other 1% which made him bring us there but that's not the point. Apparently the place is being sued for animal negligence, and unsurprisingly there's a campaign to close down this place and if you feel that the zoo should be closed down after looking at the photographs, please sign the petition to help.